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TRIBEWORK is about consuming the process of life, the journey, together.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Compassion for the Hurt of Heart

Fighting
us may be how the hurt operate,

There’s a
reason within them that makes them berate,

If we can
bear in mind the cause of their attack,

We can find a response to deal
with our lack.

***

Sometimes people have been so hurt
they are, temporarily at least, unreachable from within themselves. Their hurt
propagates into hurting others, especially perhaps us; those who may genuinely
attempt to help.

Still, it’s hard to have
compassion on someone who virulently attacks us. This is why we must bear in
mind the cause of their
attack. It’s not about us at all.

What Is Personal Is Never Personal

Here is a golden paradox to enrol
ourselves upon. When we’re attacked it feels personal, but so rarely is it ever
really personal. The instant we take their frame of reference, slipping inside
their skin, feeling with their heart and thinking with their mind, with all
they have dealt with, because we know
what we’ve dealt with, we begin to understand. Yet, we’ll never completely
understand.

Such a paradox is an enigma. We’re
easily fooled into defence via counter-attack.

The best counter-attack, however,
is meeting the hurt person in compassion,
no matter what. In this way, love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8). If we can
be beyond hurt, reminding ourselves that their attack is not personal, no matter
how personal it feels, we’re able to think as Jesus would.

With an acute mindset of how it
might feel to be them, in that
moment, the compassion-of-empathy becomes our instinctual response.

When we’re consistently able to
love the person back with our compassion it gradually dissolves their bristling
insurgence of hurt. Defences drop. Trust is gradually engendered. It was all
because we took the time, patiently, to demonstrate our unparalleled respect.

When Empathy Is Easy

There is a great deal of suffering
in our world; much visible suffering, but also much existential suffering.
People suffer just in the living of life.
As we begin to dwell on the effort and difficulty and challenge of life, being
honest about our own struggles, we can see others’ struggles in a new light.

It’s a paradox of blessing to be
so intimately aware of suffering. It sounds like a sad life; nothing could be
further from the truth.

As we repeal the desire to be
consciously happy, connecting instead with the fatigue, loneliness, struggle,
and sense of defeat in others, we gain a potent sense of empathy for everyday
suffering.

Then, we can hear their hurt; we feel
their pain; we see with new eyes.

Only a raw and honest empathy has
credibility. It relies on genuine compassion. We cannot, and should never want
to, fake this.